A passenger heard a loud bang on a Qantas aircraft as it took off from Sydney earlier today on a flight heading to Brisbane and the crew experienced an engine malfunction. The result was a large grass fire at the side of the runway, causing plumes of smoke to rise into the air.
One of the passengers on the flight was a producer for the Today Show and told the programme about her experiences. "'We had just taken off when we heard a bang. One of the engines appeared to have failed. There was silence on board and for a while, it felt like we weren’t gaining much altitude. There were some worried looks throughout the cabin. About ten minutes later, the pilot came on to reassure us about safety, explaining that they’d had an issue with the right engine on takeoff and had to shut it down for safety reasons."
According to local media reports, the aircraft circled around Botany Bay before making an emergency landing back at Sydney, followed by fire engines and emergency response vehicles. All 174 passengers disembarked the Boeing 737 safely and no injuries have been reported. Qantas, Australia's leading legacy carrier largest airline has already launched an investigation into what caused the incident.
A spokesperson for the airport confirmed the "Main runway is operational, however, passengers should also expect some delays and we thank everyone for their patience."
Another passenger on the flight was ABC journalist Mark Willacy, who describes the emergency from his perspective in the following video.
The Australian Transport Safety Bureau (ATSB) confirmed it had commenced an investigation, a spokesperson said the bureau is looking into "the engine failure incident involving a Qantas 737 aircraft during take-off from Sydney on Friday afternoon."
A team of transport safety investigators have already begun collecting evidence and "at the ATSB’s request, the operator has quarantined the aircraft’s cockpit voice and flight data recorders. Once downloaded, information from those recorders will be analysed at the ATSB’s technical facilities in Canberra."
There has been some concern voiced locally that engineers from Qantas examined the engine and said it was a "contained engine failure" with parts taken prior to the ATSB investigators' arrival.
